David Bowie's long-time guitar player Earl Slick has said that he and the rest of the artist's backing band want him to tour.

Speaking to Ultimate Classic Rock about the possibility of live shows, Slick said: “We don’t know. Obviously, we want him to. But right now, that’s a big if… I can't speak for him or the organisation. Obviously, the band would love to go out. Even if it's not a huge tour, we would like to do some gigs. But that's yet to be seen.”

Slick added that he recorded his parts on Bowie's forthcoming album, The Next Day, which will be released on March 11, back in summer 2012. “David got in touch with me out of the blue, and he said, 'I'm ready to go back in. What are you doing? Are you around? Are you touring?' I said, 'No, just get me some dates.' We started banging dates around - and he was already recording - and I went in and did all my stuff in July.”

Slick added: "There's a lot of rockers on there, I can tell you that… there's a few kind of really cool mid-tempo ones in there as well, but I'm the go-to guy for the rock stuff with David.”

Slick’s comments are echoed by producer Tony Visconti, who has said that the new David Bowie album is “a rock album.” Of the first single, “Where Are We Now?” Visconti said, “It's very melancholy, I think. It's the only track on the album that goes this much inward for him. It's quite a rock album, the rest of the songs, so I thought to myself why is David coming out with this very slow, albeit beautiful, ballad why is he doing this? He should come out with a bang. But he is a master of his own life.”